Modern Vespa

I'm in New Zealand and there's been some crazy precursor to climate collapse flooding. Insane disaster ruined most of our crops in North Island.

anyway, few hundred brand new hdpe 300s are being dropped into the market. Written off due to flooding they go cheap, around 800 usd. most are fine. some have mud in headlights.

because NZ had problems with dodgy Aussie flood damaged utes and cars, rules are crazy strict ,the bikes are almost impossible to make road legal

how hard would it be to take everything of the flooded bike except chassis and swap on the old legal frame?

I have had a lot of issues simply trying to replace my 2012/13 GTS worn throttle body with a newer one. The newer GTS models are ABS and the ECU's differ although the hardware is the same. As the keys are coded to the ECU, I have to replace those as well.

That is my context. Now back to your question...

I have no idea what 'the rules' imply, but I would first investigate stripping and then rebuilding the engine and drive train on a drowned one to comply with 'the rules'...

At the comparative prices, I think those headaches would be a lot less than the multitude of differences you will encounter trying to transplant a drowned one's innards into an older 'dry' chassis. Lights, body panels are all different.

PS: Is anyone parting them out...?

that's quite the endeavor. not including the fork, you could probably have one bike torn down in about half a day or so. so figure you have to do that twice, plan for a whole day, probably two.

putting it back together? probably a day, day and a half to get it to some semblance of a bike again and then another half day of tying up loose ends and what nots.

if it's your first time and with limited skill set and/or tools, easily a week long job-- especially when you add in cleaning everything up-- both from the flood damage and on the old chassis.

throw in another day or two for waiting on parts that you broke or repairing something that you didn't expect to.

Link?

they are in trademe. nothing at the moment, last few closed last week. might not be a few hundred but i've seen 20 or do so far.
and other bikes.